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Chewy Crust

June 15, 2009 - 8:11am

Roo

Chewy Crust

I had made a batch of the Roman Crust from PR American Pie two weeks ago and used to balls immediately and froze the remaining balls for future use. Last Friday I pulled two balls out and let thaw. They sat on the couter under plastic wrap for around 4 hours. I did a preshap of the dough on a floured surface with a rolling pin and then let rest for 5 minutes and then shaped to a 14 inch skin. I topped them and baked the first one at 550 degrees on a stone and when that came out I placed the second one in.

Both of the crusts came out chewy and tough. The first ones I did came out great, did the freezing do something or is this simply a case of to much working the dough?

OK . . . you seem to be telling me that it was the Gold Medal AP that you used for the problem batch, but your mentioning the switchover to King Arthur AP leaves me wondering. I'm not sure whether you used the Gold Medal AP for the dough that's causing problems or the King Arthur AP.

The Gold Medal AP is probably a blend of hard and soft wheats, and it's strength wouldn't be too much, usually.

The King Arthur AP is actually milled completely from hard winter wheat, which makes it stronger than any typical "All Purpose" flour from anybody else. If this was the flour you used for the dough that's giving you problems, then the higher gluten levels would probably explain the difference you're seeing.

If it was the Gold Medal AP that you used, then the flour was probably not an issue, in my opinion.

When you're "pre-shaping" your pizza shells, you're not folding or rounding the dough just before rolling, are you? That would add strength and subtract extensibility from the dough, which would make it snap back if you tried to roll it out flat shortly thereafter.

Can you let me know specifically which flour went into the dough that is giving you problems? Or was it a mixture of the two?

Sorry for the confusion Dan, it was the Gold Medal flour. Prior to using, I scaled the dough into 6 - 6 ounce pieces and these were rolled and oiled. I used two immediately and the remaining 4 went to the freezer.

For the problem crusts, I used 2 that came out of the freezer. They were already in a ball so I just flattend and rolled out to about 6 inches and let rest for a few minutes, then I hand stretched the rest of the way to around 14 inches.

Well . . . a bit more gluten development may have occurred passively as the dough sat during the freezing/thawing procedures, but I honestly don't know why you'd have had more problems with the frozen ones than with the ones you used the same day of mixing.

By the way, I'm thinking you'll see even more strength out of KA's All Purpose flour, which is, as I already mentioned, milled from ALL hard wheat. I use it for pizza all the time, and it should work well, but I think you'll see greater absorption and possibly more chewiness from the KA than you do with the Gold Medal AP.

before laying on the toppings? Sometimes the shaping/rolling/stretching can knock all the bubbles out leaving a tough crust if it's not allowed to recover. Try rolling it out sooner and let it finish warming up flattened out. Just an idea.

I use a high hydration sourdough and like to bake it just a bit and set it before adding the weight of toppings.

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